Not that I have that many regular readers (although there are a few of you), but I have been conspicuously absent this week. Have I been embroiled in Halo? Finishing the last 10 hours of Mass Effect? Harvesting...er...rescuing Little Sister? No; I have become adicted to EvE-Online.

Now I know this game did not receive much critical acclaim and many fans of the MMO genre are not fans of the game, but I am absolutely loving it. More complicated than WoW, more original than all the others, I have been playing non-stop in my free time for a week and I still have no clue what I am doing (which makes it all the more fun).

Anyway, my absence from the rest of my life has caused me to question what it is about MMOs (and really all videogames) that I find addictive. It's not just the social aspects (I tend to solo more often anyway), it's something about the coalescence of planning skills, gathering items, and making money. Perhaps it is because these are things we have to do in real life and so we are accustom to these activities, yet in the game there is nothing lost but pride if we are not good at any of these tasks. It could also be something about the competitive nature of MMOs with their focus on leveling and pvp.

Ultimately I'm not sure why I get so sucked into these games, I just know that I do.